What Sparked Five Years of Innovation?

March 17, 201617 Mar 2016

By: Jennifer Zelmer

“What makes you think that you’re so smart that you can guess the winners?”

This provocative question came from an academic specializing in innovation studies in 2010. At the time, I was seeking advice on how to shape our strategy for new investments in digital health innovation. Emphasizing the research that shows that it is very rare to be able to consistently identify promising early stage advances, he suggested only investing in established solutions. That did not fit with the needs that we had heard from stakeholders across the country, but his first question did prompt a deeper look at how we might best pursue our goals.